An overarching fear of needles and needle sticks exists throughout the world. This fear knows no bounds of age, sex, or race. For many, this phobia makes visits to the doctor and dentist intolerable and often times a last resort. This ultimately results in missed doctor's and dentist's visits and inadequate healthcare treatment of various illnesses, diseases and for routine vaccinations.
For people with this phobia coupled with chronic diseases such as, for example, insulin dependent diabetes, treatment is a daunting task. These patients face the daily task of sticking their finger with a lancet to draw blood to test blood sugar. For a noncompliant patient, this complicates diagnosis and treatment of the condition, and even for the most compliant patient, the task of repeatedly sticking their finger with a lancet is extremely painful. In addition, for a compliant patient each day the patient must administer medication or insulin via an injection. After administering their medication, proper sterile techniques require one to sterilize the injection site and place a bandage where the injection took place. This process is tedious and mundane. Many people fail to follow proper sterile techniques, and as a result, the injection site may become infected. For those people who do follow this protocol, the skin is often damaged due to the constant application and removal of bandage adhesives. Thus, it would be desirable for the subject to have a patch containing a local anesthetic to numb the injection site, an antiseptic or antimicrobial agent to prevent injection site infection, and either a single use or multi-use injection port to allow for a pain free injection for as many days as needed.